Dale Irvin

Dale Irvin

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Like so many others in the lonely realm of cyberspace, this site has sat here neglected for the last year. But now, overwhelmed by guilt, I've returned to give it some attention. To streamline the process of reporting on what's happening in the world of cheap travel I now have a blog, perhaps the last person on the planet to start one:

Further Afield Blog

You can email me with questions here. Please remember that I'm a travel writer, not a travel agent, so I can't make reservations, and most of what I know lies in the area of budget travel. But I'm happy to share what I do know:

E-mail Dale

Sign up for my new column "Further Afield."

I'm writing a new column called Further Afield for Country Roads Magazine's new weekly email "Milepost." You can sign up now at:

Country Roads Magazine

My favorite web travel tools:

Travelocity's "search all dates for best fares" feature is one of my favorite tools. You plug in where you want to go, and it will display the best fare available and show you a calendar with the dates on which that fare is available. The downside is that you must search airline by airline, and it doesn't include fares from some discount airlines like Southwest.

Travelocity.com

If you have just a little flexibility in your travel dates Orbitz has a cool tool that lets you search up to three days before and three days after your target date to find the best fares. It's a terrific tool when it works, but I've found that the results aren't always reliable. If they get the bugs out this will be my favorite search tool.

orbitz.com

You can sign up for a weekly alert from Smarterliving.com that compiles all of that weekend's last minute airfare deals from either Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

smarterliving.com

Not surprisingly, another of my favorite links is the one for the bed and breakfast that I co-own in New Orleans' hip, historic Faubourg Marigny neighborhood.

www.sweetolive.com